Prompted by the latest posts here, we paid a visit to our local distributor who in the past, has been super helpful and nice to deal with. They did not have the new columns yet. But did show me some of the capabilities in their freezer bottom unit. Note that I am just passing on what we were told :). The Mastercool controls look both cool and not so cool :). On the positive front, you get to set the temp and humidity of each bit electronically. I seem to recall on the Bosch, etc it is those plastic sliders. Those sliders donÂt seem all the functional to me as they are easy to bang into/change. On the down side, she had to touch the controls multiple times to get the system to detect. A real switch to control them would have been better than a touch control that is fussy. The main thing my wife liked, and someone should verify that Bosch series donÂt do, is that you there is a bucket where the ice falls into that can be slid left and right. In doing so, you can then use the entire larger slider under it to fill with ice for parties and such. On doors being easier to mount, she said that once the panels are mounted to the door grid, they are hung and then can be adjusted in that way using some mechanism on the door. She said the time to do this is 75 minutes (!). With the other units, she said the panel needs to be taken on and off to adjust the panels and that is what takes a lot of time. The door panels had heavy stainless rails into which the glass buckets hung. You could push the glass bucket up and remove them without removing the slides which hold not. Seemed nice to have them be this way. On wifi connection, in our case, it is a useful thing in that it can detect unit failure or door being left open. We will be having the unit in our vacation house and hate to come to it after a month of being gone, just to find everything gone bad due to unit failure. Not a huge deal mind you, but useful. I asked if there is a charge and she said "not currently." Not sure what that means as far as them charging in the future. I asked her the cost and she gave me an MSRP of $12,000 for dual 30 inch units. I seem to recall that the Gagg was less than $10K so this is quite a premium for the few features. Availability apparently is pretty poor for the freezer. She said someone just ordered a set and the freezer is scheduled for October! Yikes. Overall, it seems that they have done some homework on refining everything around the core of the unit. I donÂt feel that they have created enough value to go beyond the Gagg unit. But for people where price is no object, I think they should seriously consider Miele. We are not quite in that category although close when it comes to our kitchen remodel :).

Decades ago KitchenAid had rinse hold and full cycle. As time passed they added more cycles even those that were "fuller" than full cycle but you still would find full cycle on all models. I think Normal is one of those that you will find on most Miele models even though there may be other cycles that take more advantage of newer technologies. Normal seems to be a universal one that is intense enough to do most tasks. The sensor economy, cheese, starch and other cycles take more advantage of the machines capabilities with technology and can use less water, take less time,and still clean a dirty load, although I don't think any Miele DW uses a lot of water to begin with. I think normal does a good job but I don't like the fact that it does 2 pre-washes before the main wash - one is good enough - I mean the rest of the cycles only do one with no problems. Normal configured for other global regions only does 1 pre-wash. The Excella and Laperla also have automatic load recognition so these models will match the water fill amount to the size of the load. One feature on the Excella and LaPerla that doesn't get too much attention is the fact that you can remove the middle rack and wash only in the bottom along with the cutlery rack. There are two cycles that do this, only difference between them is the water temperature; one uses hotter water than the other. This is good if you have tall items and since you can wash glasses in the bottom I guess you could do a mixed load that way if needed. In 1996 when I bought my first Miele there were two models to chose from and both were at the highest price point. Now they are offering more models at different price points so I guess that is why there is a difference between cycle offerings, washing and drying methods, water usage and sound.

Thanks Marcydc. Changing the first filter was hard because the installer used big honkin' working man muscles to tighten it so tight we needed tools to unscrew it (I had psychologist man muscles working on it, but he needed pliers for leverage). The real difficulty, however, is changing the filter, and fixing the filter code, without warming up the freezer. After my third change I've learned a few things: The book says that when the filter light first comes on it's just a warning, and when the light changes state (starts or stops blinking--can't remember which), it's time to change. Tech help told me I should change as soon as it comes on, and that the trouble I've had resetting the filter indicator comes from letting it go to the end. In that case, it has to be changed in program mode rather than customer mode. The other thing I've learned is not to even try to reset right after changing the filter. My unit won't go into customer mode if it's even a little warm, and if it loses too much cool, it won't go into program either. It's basically trying to say, "Shut the door, idiot!!!" It's easy enough to change the filter and wait a number of hours. I always set aside some ice, because you're supposed to throw away the first 24 hrs. worth, so waiting another 6-12 hours is no biggie. But what defines "hard"? For me, it's the procedure to get into customer mode or program mode. It's arcane in a way that only a German engineer could like. It's like looking for easter eggs in a computer game. I can't hold the instructions and do the routine at the same time. That's "hard".

I had a long and detailed post on my Liebherr experience which of course got deleted before I could post....SIGH. Bottom line-- I have mixed review on my happiness quotient after owning a Liebherr for 13 years. Overall-- yes, lives up to its claims for quietness, longevity of dual compressors, freshness of food, nice layout. I do like the little alarm for open door, and the temperature readout. Keeps temp well after all these years! But: some quality problems nonetheless make me less than thrilled. Some no big deal (replaced freezer bin and fridge bin which cracked after the years, but this was okay since they were not hard to find nor expensive to replace; but better would be not cracking at all!) Others I'm not sure how they compare--gasket/seals have cracked and split after this long in service and need replacing. But I didn't lubricate, do other people do this with theirs? They don't look that easy to replace as the ones I am familiar with from older fridges that can be screwed in, I have to investigate this further. This alone wouldn't be real cause for complaint at this age but read on... Problems that are harder to fix and make me wish the quality were somewhat longer lasting --- small piece of plastic on the front framing is chipped off and noticeable, hard to explain where this is, it is not the seal, not the stainless (obviously), but a silver plastic framing piece. Noticeable and hard to see how to replace, it looks welded on? No idea how this happened. But it is consistent with the not super quality of the plastic interior bins that needed replacing. Worse yet: small rust spots on the front of the 'stainless' steel. I haven't ever ever used weird chemicals on it. Seems like it is coming from within? Dealer I spoke with says this is rare. Yah. Well. I didn't *do* anything to it! Of course it is long out of warranty. I have no idea how to fix this--dealer (not my dealer, place I bought it from is out of business now) gave me the number of 'a guy he knows' to get on the list for fixing this, but I couldn't reach him, didn't return my message. I'll try him again, as the 'guy' route is usually the best if you *can* get ahold of 'the guy'. Also, small dent in front door (mop handle? no idea, but it could be because the door swing has always been a bit crazy, guests tend to fling/slam it too wide open) and scratches to front stainless from kids sometime putting letter magnets on it when they were little and moving them around. Should this type of activity cause scratches? Don't know, maybe so, but not terribly impressed. My kids are not rowdier than usual, but they did after all touch it with magnetic kid things at some point. Alls I can say is that the Miele stainless dishwasher looks like new after 13 years, the Miele stainless cooktop has taken a lot more pummelling and looks better than the Liebherr at this point 13 years later. So the very attractive styling of Liebherr, the gentleman (lieb-herr), is compromised at this point by rust pin spots, a dent and little scratches, chipped plastic bit on front. Yeah, it's old, but would a subzero or Miele look like this at this age?, I don't know, but I do know my Miele dishwasher, washer, dryer, cooktop, even vacuum look great after decade plus of service. And the vacuum gets flung and banged around, a fridge sits there! Liebherr looks...old. Also functionally-- the auto defrost is not super fantastic. As I said, it does work, and work after 13 years, that is something! But, the normal dripping down the back inside --can't let stuff touch that or it will ruin produce that touches it. Hole in back gets plugged and you have to jab at it with a toothpick. Not too glamorous l Freezer gets ice build up on bottom inside and needs too frequent defrosting. I'm not in love with all this. I take it mostly 'normal' function for Liebherr design. I didn't get an ice maker so that never failed. Not sure what is better, but I'd love to get something that captures the pros of Liebherr without the cons. I will be moving soon and buying so anyone with recs, please advise! I may start a new thread... but that's my Liebherr report from a longtime owner. I'll come back and post model if I find that info... but it's a freestanding 30 inch fridge over 3 drawer freezer model.